


Talk to Her

by Poetry



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Boundaries, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Movie Night, Queer Gen, Queerplatonic Relationships, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:32:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4186893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lito has a movie night with Nomi and Amanita, and realizes he needs to have a talk with Daniela.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk to Her

**Author's Note:**

> I like Daniela and her relationship with the boys, but I needed to hash out my complex feelings about it. Please note that this fic discusses sexual assault (though it doesn't happen in the fic directly).

Nomi was curled up with Amanita in bed, browsing through Netflix, when Lito appeared on her other side.  
  
“Hey,” she said, smiling at him. Then, to Amanita: “Lito’s here.”  
  
“Oh! He’s the actor, right? Hi, Lito!”  
  
Nomi could feel Lito’s embarrassment. He’d shared a consciousness with Nomi while the two of them had sex, and now that their minds weren’t merged, he was looking at Amanita and couldn’t imagine wanting to fuck her, much less actually doing it. Not to mention, wasn’t she embarrassed that he’d seen them?  
  
For her part, Nomi had been embarrassed too. When it was happening, she’d been too swept up in the pleasure of it to care, but afterward, she decided there was at least one part of her life that she wanted to keep to herself as much as she could.  
  
Lito and Hernando, though. They really knew how to fuck. Good on them.  
  
“Lito’s feeling a little shy,” said Nomi. “‘Cause of. You know.”  
  
“Oh! It wasn’t your fault, Lito. From what Nomi said, it seems like you guys didn’t even know what you were doing. Ever since she told me about it, I check in on her before we have sex, you know, just to make sure no one’s visiting.”  
  
“That’s a good idea,” Lito said, thinking of Hernando. Changing the subject, he looks at the screen and says, “Ooh, Netflix! What are you watching?”  
  
“We haven’t decided yet,” said Nomi.  
  
“Mind if I join you?” said Lito. “I’m at home laying low because of all the paparazzi, and Hernando and Daniela are out, so…”  
  
Nomi grimaced in sympathy. “Hey, Neets, mind if Lito joins us? He’s kind of miserable right now because of all the…” She waved her hand.  
  
Amanita’s brows crease in. “Oh, God, it must be terrible. I saw an article about it on my Facebook feed. Yeah, sure you can stay.”  
  
“Americans are writing articles about it? It must be a big deal,” Lito joked weakly.  
  
“I bet we can all decide on a movie,” Nomi said. “We’re all queers here. Let’s have a look at the recommendations for LGBT comedies.”  
  
“I’d like that,” Lito said.  
  
Nomi browsed through the recommendations. “ _Different for Girls_ … ugh, no, that has a cis dude playing a trans character… _Imagine Me and You_ , you and I saw that already, Neets… oh, look, Lito, here’s a Spanish movie.”  
  
“ _I’m So Excited_? I haven’t heard of it. What’s it called in Spanish? Oh! _Los Amantes Pasajeros_? The Almódovar film? Haven’t seen it yet.”  
  
“Almódovar,” said Amanita. “Openly gay filmmaker, right? He’s the one who did _Talk to Her_?”  
  
“Yes,” said Nomi and Lito in unison (though of course Amanita wouldn’t know that).  
  
“Hernando showed me that movie once,” said Lito. “It’s really good.”  
  
“This one looks like the fun kind of camp.” Nomi smiled at Lito. “Hey, with you here, I won’t need the subtitles.”  
  
Amanita kicked Nomi under the covers. “Hey! C+ in high school Spanish here. I still need them!”  
  
“We’ll keep them on,” said Nomi. She pulled up the movie and settled back against the pillows. Amanita was tucked up against her on the left, and the strong hard line of Lito’s body pressed against her right. Her body told her that this was exactly the way it should be. For the first time in days, Nomi let herself relax completely.  
  
The movie, as it turned out, was set on a plane. Together, the three of them giggled at the queer dramas of the flight attendants, pilot, co-pilot, and first-class passengers as they gossiped and schemed and backstabbed each other.  
  
Then came the scene where Bruna, one of the first-class passengers, snuck into economy class and fucked one of the passengers while he slept. The music was upbeat, wacky, as if this were just another joke. Nomi recoiled, imagining the people in the theater laughing on cue. Amanita hit pause and snapped the lid of the laptop shut like it might start shooting fire at her.  
  
Lito stopped laughing. Nomi hadn’t just been imagining it, then. “What’s wrong?” he said.  
  
“They always do that,” Amanita said, answering Lito’s question even though she hadn’t heard it. “They always play rape for laughs when a woman does it to a man. It’s disgusting.”  
  
Nomi rubbed circles on the back of Amanita’s neck with her thumb. “I know, honey. I know.”  
  
“Rape?” said Lito. “But she didn’t force him. He didn’t make her stop.”  
  
“He was asleep!” Nomi said, turning to Lito.  
  
She felt Amanita turn her head, and when Nomi looked back at her, she was glaring daggers at the side of the bed that to her seemed empty. Nomi mouthed, _Let me handle this, Neets_ , and turned over in bed to face Lito.  
  
“Consent isn’t about not saying no,” Nomi said. “It’s about being on board the whole time. You know what’s happening, and you want it to happen. That can’t happen when you’re asleep.”  
  
Lito took a moment to absorb this. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes were wide. Nomi felt the memories bleed through: a woman Lito loved and trusted, taking off his clothes, backing him against walls, “I’m not used to men saying no to me,” cuddling in bed with her at night with their clothes on and yes, that was much better; the same woman with pictures of Lito and Hernando together on her phone, “You took pictures of us?” and Daniela was not a bad person, he loved Daniela and she did those things, so they couldn’t be what Nomi was saying they were.  
  
Nomi clapped a hand over her open mouth. Her heart was pounding with Lito’s remembered fear. “She did that to you? That’s how the photos got out?”  
  
“She didn’t go public with them. It wasn’t her fault.”  
  
“But she took them without your permission. And she… she assaulted you, Lito. That first night in your apartment.” Nomi felt Amanita curve against her back, squeeze her shoulder with a reassuring hand.  
  
“I’ve forgiven her for that, Nomi. She had bad relationships with men. She thought the only way to make them be good to her was to sleep with them. She needed my help and she did what she thought she had to do to get it.”  
  
“But she didn’t apologize. Not for that night, not for taking the pictures without your permission. Lito, you and Hernando need to talk to her. You need to set boundaries.”  
  
“She’s learned her lesson. She loves us. She won’t do something like that again.”  
  
Nomi thought about that. Then she said, “Neets, can you tell the story about Alex?”  
  
There was a pause. Then Amanita said, “Alex was my first girlfriend. She was older than me, and I was so in love with her, I would’ve done anything for her. She knew that. So she got me doing things with her I wasn’t ready for, because I was afraid of losing her. I never said no. She never forced me into anything. But once I started letting her push my boundaries, she never stopped. I thought all relationships were like that. But then I met a girl named Zuzu, and I asked if I could put my hand up her shirt at a school dance, and she said no, she only did stuff like that in private. And I realized I liked her even more because she could say no, and I wanted to be like her.”  
  
“You and Hernando should discuss your boundaries with Daniela,” said Nomi. “Just like Amanita and I discussed our boundaries about the cluster. I asked her if you could join us, remember? That’s because Amanita set a boundary, and I respect that.”  
  
Lito looked away. “We’ll just upset her if we bring this up again.”  
  
“Maybe. But it’ll upset you and Hernando if she pushes too far again. Whatever happened to Daniela, that’s terrible, but it’s no excuse for getting involved in your sex life in a way you don’t want.”  
  
“I think I have a book about this!” said Amanita. “It’s about polyamory and how to negotiate all the different relationships. I could look through my ebook library?”  
  
“What’s…” Lito began. Nomi reached inside herself – she still wasn’t great at this – and shared her knowledge with him. “Oh. But I don’t love her the way I love Hernando. And we don’t have sex with her.”  
  
Nomi reached inside again and offered him the term _queerplatonic relationship_.  
  
“Oh. That’s interesting. I’ve seen some relationships between men – straight men – in Mexico like that. Tell Amanita she’s very sweet, but I think Hernando and I will find our own way to do this.”  
  
Nomi passed it on. “As long as you do it,” said Amanita. “Don’t forget what happened to me. You deserve to say no sometimes. Even to someone you love.”  
  
“That’s not the kind of thing we say about love in the movies,” Lito said.  
  
Amanita laughed. “Movies suck at showing what love is anyway. As far as I’m concerned, love is watching Nomi drool while she sleeps.”  
  
Nomi got a memory from Lito of waking up early and seeing a trickle of drool on Daniela’s pillow, smelling Hernando’s morning breath. He laughed. “Maybe I should be in a movie about that. Instead of _Talk to Her_ , we’ll call it _Watch Her Sleep. With Her Permission, Or Else You’re Being Creepy_.”  
  
Nomi laughed and beat his empty side of the bed with a pillow. “Go on, silly. Go home. I want to have sleepy post-movie sex with Neets, and I’m setting a boundary. No more orgies.”  
  
“And remember!” Amanita called. “Talk to her!”  


**Author's Note:**

> My own little joke: Miguel Ángel Silvestre, the actor who plays Lito, was also in _I'm So Excited_. As you can tell, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that movie, but Almódovar's other movies are pretty great.


End file.
